September said:
Nissan markets 100mile range car and if we think about LEAF as a potential for transport rather then store of electricity then hot climate battery degradation would be offset by much better battery peformance.
I'm sorry, but there is a BIG difference here. Let's take two people who each bought a LEAF last month, April 2012, based on Nissan's claim of 100-mile range. One lives in Limerick while the other lives in Phoenix. They each have a 70-mile commute. They test the LEAF before their purchase and confirm that they still have two bars left on their battery charge gauge when they arrive home. So far so good.
Both owners make their commute fine for he rest of 2012, but the owner in Limerick starts having problems getting to work starting in January 2013. He complains to Nissan that it does not have the range they advertised. They verify that the car is working as designed and he leaves, angry. Because he cannot make his commute in the wintertime, he decides to sell the car. He sells it in "like new" condition for 75% of what he paid to someone who has a 40-mile commute who feels they got a great deal.
The Phoenix owner fares much better. He is able to make his commute without difficulty for three full years before he has any problems. Then he simply cannot make it without slowing to dangerously low speeds on the highway. He complains to Nissan also, but they explain that gradual capacity loss over time is not covered under the warranty. In addition, the effects of heat on batteries in early Nissan LEAFs in Phoenix have been widely reported in the local news, on the Internet and by word-of-mouth. Nissan has announced that the 2016 model will contain a battery with 25% more range and an available hot-weather package. He decides to sell his LEAF, too, but finds that he is not able to get more than $10,000.00 for the car due to the need to replace the battery in the near future.
So, you could argue that the buyer in Limerick lost more money on an annualized basis than the Phoenix buyer, and you would be right. But he lost money because the car was not the right choice for him, not because the car has degraded in any way. Perhaps Nissan should have been more clear about range, but he certainly could have learned about this issue on his own.
The Phoenix buyer, OTOH, has good reason to believe that his car will manage his commute based on public statements that Nissan has made. He knows that Nissan has done extensive testing nearby in Sonora, which gives him some comfort. But after three years his car is seriously degraded from new condition. He had expected that to happen, but only after six-or-more years. So is this his fault, or Nissan's? I would say probably neither's. Both took a risk with new technology and there was a problem. So should the Phoenix buyer bear the brunt of the financial loss? Legally, yes. But, as TickTock said in a recent post, if things turn out to be this bad, I'm sure Nissan will do the right thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure they will be FORCED to do the right thing. If Nissan is proactive and steps in to protect their customers's interest by sharing in the loss, they will no-doubt come out great in this situation. If they decide instead to hold their customers to the letter of their warranties util a court steps in to make them pay, they may find selling LEAFs in hot climates to be a difficult proposition in the future.
So, as mwalsh has said, these are completely different situations.
